Commodities
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: Where did Dani go after Kindred Spirits? She had no papers, no money, no identity, no nothing. Just the clothes on her back, her wits, and some flashy powers that killed her a little more every time she used them. This is one possibility. Part of the Spirits Rise Verse. Rating for violence and dark themes. Short fics, not necessarily in chronological order.
1. Packing Peanuts

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Daydream Syndrome" sung by Marina Fujiwara.

* * *

Packing Peanuts

No one knew much about the new girl. That was okay. No one ever knew the new kid. Sometimes a kid would come into the store for a night, to hide from the cold and the wet and other things, and be gone a few days later. Sometimes a kid would come in and start coughing and being sick everywhere, and the kid would have to leave one way or the other because we couldn't afford to get sick. Sometimes a kid would come in with little packets and sharp things, and we would hide, because those kids already belonged to the gangs. Sometimes a kid would come in with nothing in their eyes and faces, and they would wander back out or just stop, and then Ricky and Marta had to get rid of it.

At first, the new girl seemed like one of those. She was little and said she was twelve, but she didn't look it. She looked too new, like someone took a twelve-year-old out of her old body and put her in a brand new one off some shelf somewhere. Rich people had all sorts of weird things, and the kooks would do that. What we didn't know was why. All we knew was that the new girl was new on the outside, new on the inside and old in between, and so quiet and passive we all figured she was gonna go soon. Then one day, one of the sharp kids came in and held a needle in front of her face, and the needle wound up through his hand. That was when the new girl became the crazy girl, because only crazy people did that to the bad kids.

The next day, the kid came back with a knife and a big stick and we didn't want to know what else, so we cleared out of the Store and found places to hide. No one really wanted the store since there wasn't anything in it, but it was our place, so as long as there was an "us" we'd come back. Eventually.

The crazy girl didn't hide though, and even when he stuck the knife in her she didn't scream, just pulled it out and smiled at him, and said something Jiffy couldn't exactly hear from his spot near the door (even though we'd told him not to go out in the open). The bad kid just kept going, and she punched him, just once, and he went down. Then she looked at the knife, looked at it, and snapped it. It was a big metal knife, one of those meat cleavers you could cut through bone with, and she just snapped it. It made this funny sound like biting ice or breaking up old boards, only not. Then she picked the kid up like he was made of packing peanuts and dumped him out in the street.

Of course, now Jiffy was hiding. Then the dope went and fell out of the empty trash can he'd hid in trying to run away, and the crazy girl laughed at him. Then she stopped laughing really quick and held her left arm with her right one, and told Jiffy she was sorry about the mess and if there was anything she could rip up for bandages. Then Rique came out and talked to her for a bit, and I think he asked her how she was still standing with a big old hole in one arm and another one in her side. She said she always healed fast, she just wanted some old pretty-clean cloth for bandages and she'd be out of everybody's hair. It looked like the crazy girl was scared of us, and that really was plumb crazy, because why the heck would a girl that could break a knife with her fingers be scared of a bunch of plain old kids like us?

Then Rique did something crazy, and don't think Marta didn't chew him out over it later because she sure did. Rique asked the crazy girl if she wanted to stay with us. The crazy girl asked if it was really okay, and Ricky said sure and Marta got ready to yell at him, but then the crazy girl smiled at him. Not the crazy I'm-gonna-hurt-you smile, but a nice smile. Then she said she was sorry again for the trouble, and she fainted.

That was when the crazy girl became our crazy girl, because only one of us would beat up a junkie and then faint two feet away. She wasn't just crazy, she was a loon! She'd fit right in, we figured. And boy, was Marta mad.

* * *

Author's note: Because Falling Leaves wasn't enough. I have a whole planned universe set up, just waiting to be filled in. It's just that one of my planned stories takes place at the same time as FL, and Child's Play is supposed to be a direct sequel to this story. Common Household Items is going to be a series of snapshots and little bits and pieces revolving around Dani and a bunch of street kids (yes, OCs). It's kind of hard to be a hero when you're starving and quite literally falling apart. (Bear in mind, this is complete fiction, and any resemblance to real people is a complete coincidence.)

There may be significant time skips, and a lot of the fics will be character sketches set at no particular time. This is because it's easier to write whatever ideas I come up with and paste them together later. I want to hurry up and finish CHI so I can start on CP and finish working out the plot for FL.

EDIT: Stupid me, I forgot to fix the title.


	2. Birdseed

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: Something from the Revolutionary Girl Utena soundtrack. (I can't remember what.) Or just "Daydream Syndrome" by Marina Fujiwara again.

* * *

Birdseed

They sat in silence, punctuated only by the chirping of sparrows and the shushing of leaves. This was a nice place.

"Izzy?"

"Yes, Dani?"

"Thank me very much for showing me your special place."

"You're welcome!"

The little girl fidgeted, then reached into a pocket and pulled out a little bag and held it out to Dani. "Here," she commanded. "Take it."

"All right," she replied, humoring her willful little friend. "What's in it?"

"It's birdseed, so we can feed the birds."

"How do we feed the birds, Izzy?" Dani asked, with a puzzled look plastered on her face.

Izzy looked at her, the picture of exasperation, and huffed impatiently, "Gimme back that bag and I'll show you."

"Okay," she said brightly, cheerfully returning the bag.

"Yay! Okay, so it goes like this. Watch carefully, Dani," she instructed seriously. Izzy carefully took off the twist-tie and stuck it in a buttonhole to make sure she didn't lose it, then reached into the bag, pinched her fingers shut and just as carefully brought her hand out, making sure she couldn't drop a single one. Then she stepped back a few steps and let her fingers open as she moved her arm in a sweeping motion through the air in front of her. "And that's how you feed birds! Now you try," she said imperiously, handing the bag back to the taller girl.

Dani smiled, and copied Izzy's motions as closely as she could. For those not in the know, this was very close. "How was that?"

"Good. But you can do better," she said seriously.

"All right, let's try again."

Several feet away, a pair of sparrows pecked at the ground between the weeds. After all, real birds were uninterested in imaginary birdseed. Make-believe food filled no bellies, but sometimes it was better to pretend.

* * *

A/N: Yes, this is one of the aforementioned character sketches. Just a few minutes in the life, set a few weeks after the end of Packing Peanuts. I'll fill in the blanks later.


	3. Window

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Colors of the Heart" by UVERworld.

* * *

Window

Ow. Oh, ow ow freaking ow. Was it sad that I've woken up from unconsciousness enough times to identify the cause by the placement and intensity of the resulting headache? Yes, yes it was, and I really shouldn't have tried to move.

I slowly cracked one eye open, checking for brightness. The light was dim, just a bit of sunlight coming through a broken window, with a distinctly watery quality that told me it was early morning. I blinked, opened both eyes, and tried to remember how the heck I got here. This wasn't my room, or any of the labs, so how…? Oh, yeah. My target was telling the truth, Father is a freak and I'm on the run. Great. I moaned, regretting it as the slight noise sent needles of bright hot pain shooting through my head.

Suddenly, movement. I turned my head a bit to the right. A few feet away there was a pile of brightly-colored scraps of cloth with a pile of very dirty blonde hair on top. It was just the littlest girl turning over in her sleep. Satisfied that there was no threat, I let my eyes slip closed and tried to get some rest. I had a feeling I would need it when the others woke up.

* * *

A/N: Takes place the morning after Packing Peanuts.


	4. Bandages

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Colors of the Heart" by UVERworld.

* * *

Bandages

I stared at the crazy girl, not even bothering to try to sleep. It had been nuts after the fight, and I hadn't had time do much of anything but react. The first priority was getting the would-be initiate the hell gone. I'd had Beans hit him again to make dead sure he wouldn't wake up anytime soon, and then let Marta deal with clean-up. He'd be waking up in some dark corner a mile or two away, minus all his weapons and most of his clothes. No sense in wasting supplies.

The second priority had been the crazy girl. The second the guy she'd beaten up was out of the way, I was yelling for the others to give us space. While Marta, Beans and Jiffy dealt with him, I waved Carter and Tim over and told them to Izzy-sit. No, they did not have a choice. While I helped them round up the brat, Charlie was getting the crazy girl out of her jacket. We didn't have much in the way of medical facilities, but even just washing out the wounds and putting some disinfectant and bandages on would give her a chance, or more of one than if we let her bleed out.

She was definitely insane. Showing up out of nowhere was business as usual, and we all knew the signs. She always slept with her back to something, ate any food she could get as fast as possible and only talked when she absolutely had to. It was pretty obvious from how skinny and nervous she was that she'd been on her own for a while, and run into some nasty characters at one point or another. It was definitely more than that, though.

She was obviously weak, and she shivered all the time, even in the warm September weather. It was an Indian summer, and the days could still get up into the high seventies – definitely shirtsleeve weather, but she always had on the same blue hooded sweatshirt, red shorts and blue sneakers. The hoodie really should have been enough for now, before fall really set in, but she still shook like a leaf all the time. I knew she was sick, but she wasn't coughing or leaking everywhere, so I figured as long as she kept the sick to herself we'd be fine.

I didn't figure on what happened a few minutes ago. She'd woken up for a second, moaning from what I knew had to be a killer headache. Passing out sucks. I kept as still as I could when she opened her eyes, praying she wouldn't turn hostile. I didn't really want to think about what someone with superstrength and who knows what else enhancements could do to me. Then she closed her eyes, wiggled around a little and started snoring like a damn buzzsaw. Like I didn't have enough of a headache from missing a night of sleep.

That wasn't the scary part. The scary part was what happened a few seconds ago. She tensed up, whimpering like a scared animal, and I knew she was having a nightmare. Part of me wanted to help the poor kid, but most of me was screaming to run away very fast and hide very far away. I really hoped my inner voice was wrong today. Then her eyes opened, staring at nothing, and she floated above the ground, hands curled into fists and glowing green. A blue-white light began to form around her middle, then fizzled out as she snapped out of whatever trance she'd been in. She dropped to the ground, probably getting some new bruises to join her stab wounds, but I doubt she noticed. I know I noticed her feet and legs melting out of her shoes. Well, that explained the shorts in September.

I stared at the crazy girl, trying hard not to scream. I couldn't freak out now, not when everyone needed me to be reliable. I could break down and panic in the privacy of the roof, or one of the many empty rooms, later. Much, much later, after I dealt with the girl melting into a puddle of bright green gunk. I looked up from the puddle, past shaking hands and too-pale skin into fearful pale blue eyes asking me a question. I didn't know the answer. I wasn't even too sure about the question, but at that moment I know one thing. Whether she meant to or not, the crazy girl saved my life last night, mine and the other kids' lives. Whoever and whatever she was, she didn't deserve to die like this. And I don't have the heart to let her.

* * *

A/N: Takes place right after Window. It's narrated by an OC whose backstory I have somewhat planned out, but whose voice I haven't quite figured out yet. He'll be one of the main supporting characters in CHI, so please R&R and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Also, this is a double update. Go back one page if you haven't read Window.


	5. Weeds

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

* * *

Weeds

I'm destabilizing again. I didn't even do anything. I just woke up and I'm melting! This is worse than it's ever been before. It's easy to see I'm a faulty clone. I always destabilize once I use up more than about two-thirds of my power reserves, and I was never very strong to start with. I only rated about a 4 on the Supernatural Entity Power Scale to start with. Basically, at full power I have one transformation and ten minutes' worth of hard fighting, then hello Jell-o feet.

This time, I couldn't even transform all the way. I don't even know why I tried, but I do know it hurts like the dickens. Make it stop, please make it stop.

Daddy, make the pain stop.

* * *

I've been up until who knows what hour of the morning cleaning up the crazy girl's mess. I just want to freaking sleep. "Izzy? What is it now?"

No answer. I sigh and pick myself up out of bed. As usual, Rique is already up and being broody somewhere, so he can't be bothered to help a little girl with her nightmares. I lurch to my feet, still mostly asleep, taking my blanket with me. I shuffle over to Izzy's usual spot behind the bakery counter, but she wasn't there. What the hell? Izzy never wakes up this early and her junk collection is all here, so where did she sleep?

Crap.

I run over to the back room, wide awake now. Izzy slept with Rique and the crazy girl. The crazy girl with superstrength, probably some runaway experiment. I can understand Rique wanting to keep watch, and I can understand Izzy sympathizing with her, but how the hell could the idiot let Izzy stay with some unstable experiment?

I open the door, imagining the worst. Izzy and Rique in a pool of blood. Izzy a pile of ash or bloody body parts like dessert by Hannibal Lecter, Rique using his vanishing trick trying to escape. Izzy screaming over a dead Rique as a monster prepares to finish the job. Please don't die. Don't leave me alone.

* * *

I finish drawing the circle, tucking the stub of white chalk into my pocket. I've already put Izzy into the safe room down the hall, so whatever happens she'll be okay. I know, I shouldn't have left her in here, but it can't be helped. Whatever's happening to the crazy girl, it's getting worse by the second. I owe her my life, and I can't let her die while I'm indebted to her.

"Hey! Crazy girl! Can you hear me? Blink twice if you can."

She looks at me, and I get the feeling she isn't really seeing me. Slowly, she closes her eyes, opens, then closes them again.

"Okay, listen. I think I can stop this, or at least keep it from getting worse, but I need you to do one thing first."

She hacks, somehow managing to put a few hundred words' worth of sarcasm and disbelief into one sound.

"It's a little thing. One word. You have to tell me your name. Spell it, if you can, so I get it right."

She opens her eyes a crack. The melting had spread, and it looked like she was draining out of her clothes. The meat locker was visible through the giant hole in the break room wall that had been there since I could remember, and there were drains in the floor. For a second, I saw empty clothes, a red hat with faintly glowing green stains and a pair of ruined shoes, a trail of green fluid lost to the sewers like yesterday's crap. No. Damn the kooks to the depths of the darkest Abyss, it won't happen.

"Dani, with an 'i'. One 'n'."

Spent, she shuts her eyes, face screwed up in obvious pain. I choose a piece of chalk, finally settling on the purple one, and write D-A-N-I in big bold letters in the middle of the circle. I pick the girl up, trying not to think about just what that green stuff dripping everywhere really is, and put her on the east side, closest to the morning sun. The sun rises in the east, but the flow of power is from the west. Any extra power I can get is more than welcome. I walk over to the west side and begin the incantation. I don't actually know enough magic to fix this, so I'll give it a go and hope for the best. Please no backfire, please no backfire.

"The contrast between male and female, day and night. The boundary between infant and child and adult and the fading of life. All things change and reflect, the light rising and the dark falling. Border child, human or not-human, show yourself."

The rings from earlier reappear, spreading over her body. Black hair bleaches white, corpse-pale skin darkens and glows. Her eyes open, glowing green like ghostfire. No way. No fracking way. Dani is- she's _undead_? She has a pulse, a heartbeat, she bled like anyone else would when the jackass knifed her. This is impossible, but it's happening.

Forget it. Dani saved me. Whatever else she is, she's a lost kid. I can't save her, but at least I can give her a chance.

"The loss of light, the loss of life. The shadow that cloaks the lost children withdraws with the dawning of the sun. As the sun's light touches the world, its strength is captured by all green growing things."

I hold up the clump of green things in my hand. It's not the carefully prepared selection of herbs I'm supposed to use for this spell, but it's what I could get. Hopefully, a hard-to-kill weed like a dandelion will be good enough. I carefully arrange the flowers around her name, on the west side.

It looks like it's working. The circle itself is starting to glow, the potential gathered into it ready to use. Now comes the hard part.

"Child of the boundary, I call you to this side. At the sound of your name, power over your life will be placed in your hands. Now choose, Dani."

Silence. I can't do a damn thing to help with this part. If she wants to die, or finish dying or whatever, she will. All I can do is give her a chance.

* * *

A/N: Phew. I wrote this and the following chapter all in one sitting, and I'm really hyped up now. Each scene change is a change in POV. Yes, I know I wrote the other scenes in past tense and this one is in present. I'm trying to make it more urgent.

Where the freak do I get this stuff?

Immediately follows Bandages. BGM: "Departures" by Katate*SIZE.

EDIT: Slight plot hole patching.


	6. Glass

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

* * *

Glass

I remember pain. I remember cold green and white, and hot bright red. I hear my heart beat and stop, once and again. I feel the rush of air into my body, strange energies in it that I try my hardest to ignore. I see lights, bright twinkling lights, fireworks and star clusters. I know darkness, now light. I know hope, now despair. I love blindly, rage against my maker. I deceive only to be saved. I lie to find the truth, and see myself. Wraith-woman in mourning, infant screaming its first breath. Months passing, a patchwork soul becoming me. I don't know who I am.

I hear a voice, a boy. Is it him? No, the voice is too rough to be Danny's, raspy and tired like an old man who has seen too much. Both are strong, but different. Danny is frozen waste and winter sun, light and cold, a winter wonderland, elder twin to the frost and flash inside me. This boy is mountains and shining rock, fire and smoke, a world in sunset, the flowing heat beneath cold stone. What is he saying?

"Child of the boundary, I call you to this side."

I am not a child!

"At the sound of your name…"

What is my name? Why don't I know that?

"…power over your life…"

Life? Aren't I dead? Or did I only die a little bit? That doesn't make any sense.

"…will be placed in your hands."

Uh, hello? I can't feel my hands!

"Now choose, Dani."

Dani. Danielle Fenton, a nonexistent third cousin once removed to the one my father wants. Dani Phantom, the mysterious ghost girl that looks like Phantom, the equally mysterious possibly-protector of Amity Park. Created to be bait in a trap. A decoy. A sitting duck. I was never supposed to last this long. Danny never had any obligation to help me. It was best that I left, that I didn't add to his burdens. He had no say in my creation. Bad enough that a fifteen-year-old boy has to keep saving the world, he doesn't need to save me.

Now, someone else is trying to save me. Why? I'm only half-human, and I was never really alive. I was half ghost, a restless soul from the moment of my creation. Why am I still clinging to this stupid excuse of a half-life?

I open my eyes. I'm in a room with two mirrors, one on either side of me and a door right in front of me. I twist around, and there's a window behind me. I get up to look out the window. It's a wasteland out there, all dead things rotting in the ground, crumbling steel skeletons of buildings and half-visible crimson-red _things_ that look too much like people and too horrible to be real. I don't even want to think about how much it must stink out there.

I walk around to the mirror that had been on my left. There's a woman reflected in the glass, eyes open and unseeing, green glowing tear tracks down her cheeks. She has long, wild white hair like mine in ghost form, but hers is even longer, falling loose almost to her hips. She's wearing a loose, almost shapeless black dress with loose sleeves, a high white collar and a wide white belt. The left sleeve is white, and the left glove is black. The right glove is white, and her long flowy skirt has white triangles along the hem. I feel my eyes widen in shock as I realize I'm looking at my reflection, only she isn't quite me. On a hunch, I rush across the room.

The other mirror shows a baby in a blue blanket, wearing a silly red beanie. She has a shock of thick black hair and Caucasian-pale skin. Her face is screwed up like she's been crying and her eyes are closed, but they must be the same spring-sky blue as my own. I'll bet anything she's five months old. Five months, from the end of April almost to the end of November. Me, but not me.

I don't know what's up with the door, and I'm not sure I want to know what's on the other side of the window. Scratch that, I really don't want to know! The things are trying to get through, and _the glass is melting_ where they touch it.

I'm going to die. I'm really going to die. Oh god, I don't want to die now. I want to live. I want to go to movie theaters and eat popcorn. I want to sit with friends and laugh about how stupid other people are. I want to climb a mountain and shout my name for the world to hear. I want to live my life. Even if it is a sad half-life, it's better than nothing. Anything is better than that.

"Dani! Please, just do something!"

I don't understand why he's trying to save me. I didn't understand when Danny helped me escape, either. I know that right now that boy, the one from the store that glared and threatened me when I first arrived, is helping me. The least I can do is graciously accept, because if I don't, I'll never do anything again. Not as myself, and that scares me more than simple oblivion ever could.

The baby is wailing silently through glass. The woman is glaring at me through her tears, eyes solid green with power. Red mist fills the room, and she points at the door. Finally, I look at the door. It's pure white, ice and bleached bone and metal. The handle is glowing red, but this is a different red. The mist is like blood and horror, like my father's eyes. The door is red like flowing lava, like the boy whose spirit burns and warms in turn. The door is the boundary of our souls, his power reaching towards me. Do I trust him?

The mist has melted the mirrors, and the altar where I woke up is crumbling. I'm afraid. I'm desperate. Do I trust him? How can I choose, when I don't even know his name?

"What are you doing? And what the hell is that!"

Another voice. This one is a girl, older than me, all wilting flowers and raindrops. A bed of moss and snowdrops blooming through the winter cold. I know her, the bossy girl that the burning boy had deal with the intruder. I wonder how someone so small could get rid of him?

"I'm trying to save her, genius."

"How? Never mind, you twit! Rique-"

Rique. Enrique Aurelio Calles. He watches over the other kids, and he wants to help me. That's all I know. It's enough. I trust him. I grab the handle, ignoring the pain and sizzle of burning flesh, yank open the door and jump through. I slam it shut behind me and turn to face the world.

* * *

"Dani! Please, just do something!"

I wasn't sure what to expect, but this sure as hell wasn't it. My spell was meant to pull her back from death's door, but this is just wrong. The red mist is so thick now, I'm sure we're both going to die. The door flies open behind me, and I hear a yelp from the safe room. Sorry about that, Izzy. Marta is yelling at me, and I don't even know what I'm saying.

I'm on autopilot, and some part of me is praying to the Virgin Mary. I sway on my feet with my hands on my knees, trying to stay upright, knowing that if I fall now, we're both damned. Dani, crazy girl, please choose right. I draw in one last breath and hold it, the red mist stinging my eyes. I'm crying. I can barely see.

I'm an idiot. I risked my life, my soul for some kid I don't even know, and now we're both going to pay for it. Marta steps back, but Izzy runs in. Shit, Marta, don't let her break the circle!

I'm seeing spots, and my lungs are burning. I can't hold my breath any longer. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. My lips part, and I exhale, expecting to inhale poison. Nothing. Just the musty smell of the storeroom, chalk and green things and the sharp bitter smell of Dani's green goop.

I crack my eyes, letting myself hope. I watch as the splotches of green scattered around the room slowly gather together, flowing back into her body. Blurry edges regain focus, her eyes solid green with the rush of power. I did it.

What did I just do?

* * *

A/N: Oy. Lots of freaky metaphorical stuff. I do indeed have plans for this, but some scenes just write themselves. Please R&R.

Immediately follows Weeds. BGM: "Departures" by KATATE*Size.


	7. Blanket

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

* * *

Blanket

It was morning, and that stupid draft was freezing my feet. I shifted, trying to get my feet tucked up out of the way, but it was too late. I had the mother of all sneezes coming my way. I got up and braced for impact.

"Ah-ACHOO!"

"Bless you," Tim mumbled from his spot on the counter.

"Thanks." I sniffed, trying my hardest not to leak snot everywhere. If I gave anyone else, especially the pest, my cold Marta would have my kidneys for breakfast. "Hey, Jiffy! You awake?"

"Mm."

"Dude, you're never asleep this late. You never sleep."

Jiffy poked his mucky straw-colored head out from under his blanket and glared at me. "I'm not sleeping. I'm hiding."

"From what? Gremlins?" I snickered, remembering how he had refused to go to sleep before midnight for a week after Rique had told that story. It was funny now, but it hadn't been that funny when a certain delusional pain in the butt was banging cans on strings all night. Testing the alarms? More like instruments of torture. "So, you wanna go bother the girls?"

"No."

"No one asked you, Tiny Tim." Tim glared out of one sleep-crusted orange eye at me, gave me the finger and turned over to sleep some more. I shrugged. His loss.

"Y'wanna bother the girls?" Jiffy asked, surprised.

"Is that such a shock?" I shot back.

"No. It's just that after that, I'd figure you to lay low and hide from Marta."

"That?" Oh. Right. Crazy girl beat up one of the tagalong kids for the Super Soldiers. "Marta had kittens, huh?"

"Nope," he said cheerfully.

"No? Why the hell not?"

"She didn't have kittens, she had cows. Many."

I winced. Marta overreacted at the tiniest change in routine, which meant pretty much everything. "I feel for you, man."

"Thanks, Cart."

"Don't call me Cart."

"But you call me Jiffy."

"Everyone calls you Jiffy. No one calls me Cart."

"Beans does."

"He's too dumb to know better."

"Charlie does."

"Charlie is frickin' scary."

"Rique does."

"Rique is a prick."

"Oh, yeah," Jiffy agreed. "I knew that!"

"Everyone-"

"Will you both kindly shut the fuck up?" Tim growled.

Jiffy and I shared a look, silently agreeing not to antagonize the short-tempered constructo-boy this early in the day. It might be funny, but it wasn't safe until Beans was awake to hide behind. Remembering Beans, I wandered over to the massive lump of old newspaper in the corner and started singing the ABC song. He usually woke up by "M."

Suddenly, the pile of papers exploded me, leaving me with a face full of last week's Travel section. "Ptooey! Yuck, newspaper ink."

"Sorry, Cart," Beans boomed. He was big, faster than he looked and the nicest guy I knew. He was also just barely smarter than a rock. That was probably why he was the nicest guy I knew.

"Hey, Beans! Y'wanna help us wake the girls up." Jiffy jumped in. Once he finished waking up, Jiffy was the most hyperactive guy in existence. There was a betting pool going for a while about whether or not he would bleed coffee, which was resolved when he lost a fight with some old shelving. Tim and Charlie wound up with all the money. How was I supposed to know that was a joke?

I shook my head, bracing for the most unpleasant part of the day. "Don't even think about it, assface." Okay, so annoying – I meant waking Tim was out.

Slowly, Beans gathered his thoughts. How many did the guy even have? "Charlie doesn't like being woken up. Marta doesn't like it." He brightened. "Izzy likes waking up. Let's go wake up Izzy!"

"Sure thing," Jiffy agreed too quickly. We shared a look and snickered, imagining how we could torment the girls today. The only way we could ever get back at them was in the mornings, when they were still asleep. Hopefully, even if Marta was up she was already doing whatever girls do in the mornings somewhere else, and we could still prank Charlie.

We went over to the girls' section behind the display counters. Izzy slept in the bakery, Charlie was on the other side behind the deli counter and Marta was in the corner where she could keep an eye on both of the other girls. No Marta, Charlie snoring away. Perfection.

Jiffy and I argued over whether we should put something gross under her blanket or just yell really loud in her ear. Jiffy didn't want to yell because Tim was already awake, but I reminded Jiffy that we would have to get something gross on our hands if we did the first one.

"So what?"

"So, Marta will be mad."

"Yelling it is!"

"Shh!" I muffled his fat trap with one hand, hoping Tim had managed to fall asleep and missed that. We would have to run quickly to escape his revenge. Suddenly, I heard a loud, familiar sobbing noise. I groaned, then yanked my hand away. "Ew, Jiffy!"

We turned to look at the big lunkhead. Jiffy finished griping about me, then asked Beans why he was crying.

He sniffed one last time. "No Izzy."

What? "Beans, she probably just got up early. You know Izzy."

"No Izzy here. Izzy thought the new girl was scared, so she went to be with the new girl."

"Wait, the crazy girl?" Jiffy yelped. "Aw, crapnuts! Guys, what if Marta finds out? Wait a minute," he said suspiciously. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Izzy said promise not to tell. Beans promised not to tell unless something bad happened."

"So why are you telling us now?" I asked. "Shouldn't you have checked on Izzy first?"

"Can't."

"Why not?" I groaned, getting tired of Beans' denseness.

"That." He pointed at the little hallway that led to the back rooms. It was just a narrow, dingy hallway we'd all gone down a hundred times. The dividing wall between the former meat locker and break room had been broken before I got here, and it was the biggest uninterrupted space in the Store. That also made it the safest place to stash the crazy girl until she healed enough to kick her out.

It was just a dim, narrow hallway. It should have had a little grayish light coming through the window and the open door in the break room, so we could go down it and check on Rique and the crazy girl. Right now, the light was the sort of red that made it look like some poor sucker was bleeding all over the floor. I looked over at Jiffy, who suddenly looked like he'd just eaten some rotten meat and needed to puke bad.

"What? What am I missing?"

Charlie snorted, shifting from under the bright red blanket she'd dibsed when she first moved in. "The hell is that noise?"

"What noise?" I asked, exasperated. Seriously, what was I missing?

"It's the Abyss."

"Izzy!" Beans cried tears of joy. Tim just appeared out of nowhere and got in Izzy's face. Unfazed, she waved hello to the diminutive terror.

"Hiya, Tim. Hi, Beans. Mornin', dummy twins."

Jiffy and I protested at that, but Charlie shot us a dirty look. Figures Izzy got it from her.

"Hi, Charlie."

"Hi, half-pint. Seriously, what the hell?"

"That's what Rique said. Rique told me about the Abyss once, cause I asked and he said it was better to know now I knew what it was called. He said there's a lot of names for it, and the one we'd all know about is aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks with a big aitch, and I figured out that it spells Hell. The one Mr. Preacher talks about when he's upset."

I froze. "Uh, pest- I mean Izzy? Does that mean there's a portal to hell in the freakin' break room?"

"I guess so," she said, clinging onto Beans' leg.

"Huh. The prick really fucked up this time."

"Shut up, Tim!" Charlie snapped. Undaunted by his usual glare, she turned to us and said, "Idiot Squad, where's Marta?"

"How would we know?" Jiffy stuttered. "She said she was going to yell at Rique, but she wouldn't really go near something like that just to yell at the guy. Would she?"

Oh, she would. No one could out-stubborn Marta.

Suddenly, Izzy started crying. "No! No, no, no, no!"

"What, what?" I jumped. "What now?"

She turned to me, big brown eyes wide with fear. "Marta. She's gone in the room now. Look."

Sure enough, the sick red light was brighter than it had been, and it started to go past the hallway. We all retreated over the counter, wanting nothing more than to be away from the frickin' Hellmouth the prick just opened in the closest thing we all had to a home. Even Tim looked worried, and I could count the number of times I saw any look on his face that wasn't a glare on one hand.

We heard Marta yelling, then silence. Absolute silence, so loud it hurt. Then out of nowhere, a white glow came out of the floor, and a pretty lady in a nun-dress holding a baby appeared out of nowhere. She walked forward, and green light crowded out the red. I couldn't see her face, but the baby was crying loud enough to break my ears. Then all of a sudden, the red light just vanished into thin air. So did the woman and the baby.

We all just stood there for a minute, all very happy it was over. Then Jiffy piped up, "You think that filled up our weirdness quotient for the month?" Charlie smacked him on her way to the back rooms, and we all trailed behind her. Nobody had any idea what we'd find back there, but one thing was for sure.

Marta was spitting mad.

* * *

A/N: Wow, three chapters in one day. I guess Freesia is productive in fits and starts. Yeah, so this is parallel to Weeds and Glass. This is what all the other kids were up to during Dani's meltdown, Marta's freakout and Rique's stupidly-underprepared spell.

Carter thinks Rique is a prick. Right. Pots and kettles.

BGM: "Mozaiku Kakera" by SunSet Swish. Um, it's not that I don't appreciate your feedback, Fluehatraya, but could someone else please R&R? Just a little one? I am a newbie, and rather insecure.


	8. Ladder

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

* * *

Ladder

I couldn't believe it.

"Help! Oh, help!"

Y'know, I actually kinda could.

"Help me!"

"Cut the crap, you pain in the neck," Rique yelled up at the struggling figure above him.

"You cut the crap."

"That doesn't even make sense," he scoffed.

Joining the growing crowd, I yelled up, "Hey, Snowflake! How's the weather up there?"

"Don't call me Snowflake… and it's a little windy," she finished.

I turned, spotting Izzy trailing – who else? Marta. Not wanting to get blamed for this mess, which really wasn't my fault this time, I hid behind Beans. Carter and I spent a few seconds jockeying for space, the argument ended by a Evil-Eye-Death-Glare-Of-Future-Pain from the terror. Carter apologized to Tim.

I just shut up, looking back up at the tree and the weirdo that had managed to get herself all tangled up in it.

Yep, in the tree, not the branches. Her powers are weird. I figured nothing much interesting was going to happen until she decided to get down, so I started off down the sidewalk.

"Jiffy! You stop right there and help that poor girl down!" Marta ordered me. Why me? Why always me? "And you too, Carter."

"Aw," he griped. "Why not Tim?"

"Tim is the only one fast enough to catch her if she falls down before you ninnies get back," Rique snapped. Okay, you don't hafta bite my head off. Jeez, man.

Carter and I walked off, grumbling all the way. We went into the old storage lockers, aka the assorted crap rooms, and dug the extendable ladder out from under some old boxes. With so many freaks living in one place, some things really were...

"Hey, Cart?"

"Don't call me that, Jiffy."

"Whatever, man. What's that word for stuff you can't do without?"

"How should I know, dude? Do I look like a dictionary?"

"No, you look like ugly."

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

A series of thumps of leather on concrete were our only warning. "OW!"

She hit me! "What the hey was that for, Charlie?" I whined.

"For getting Marta mad at me."

"How did we get Marta mad this time?" Carter complained.

"Not getting back fast enough and making her ask me to carry the ladder. Just for that, carry the stupid thing yourselves."

"What?" I said, confused. I don't get girls. I didn't even start the argument. Yeah, I asked Carter what that word was, but that didn't count.

Carter just sighed, picked up the top of the ladder and barked at me to get the legs, which was always twice as hard. I was about to argue, but it looked like Charlie was about to start kicking with the toes, and those boots really really hurt, so I didn't. I just did like I was supposed to and carried my end of the ladder.

When we got to the old hospital, we started to set up the ladder. I held the legs while Carter tried to get the stupid thing unfolded.

The crazy girl walked up behind me. "What are you guys doing?" she asked with a weird look on her face. I couldn't answer, since I was kind of out of breath from dealing with the stupid ladder. Why not have Beans do it? He's big and way stronger than skinny little me, and I don't want to be stuck out here in the freezing cold trying to get her down from the tree.

As one, Carter and I traded a look of disbelief, and we rounded on the girl. "How did you get down?" Carter yelled.

She raised an eyebrow. "Uh, I phased my feet out and climbed down? Oh, and Marta says you guys should go put the ladder away!" she finished brightly. She walked off, whistling and staring into space.

"What the hell?" Carter moaned. He had my complete agreement. We just went home and fetched the ladder for nothing, and now we had to put it back?

"Y'wanna see if Beans'll help?"

He groaned again. "Fine."

Carter stomped off to ask the bigger boy for help, leaving me to watch the ladder. I looked around for something to do, spotting straight black hair. Charlie, looking like the cat that ate the canary. Suddenly, I realized something. Dani had gotten out of the tree by herself, so why did we have to bring the ladder? Because Charlie is evil! "Hey! You tricked us!" She grinned wider, running off. I followed her, past caring about Marta and her temper.

I couldn't believe it. Charlie got us again!

* * *

A/N: Yeah, so if Birdseed didn't give that away, Dani isn't dead. This is another little bit that happens at some unspecified point in the CHI storyline. Apparently, Charlie and the boys (Carter and Jiffy) have a prank war going. Yeah, I know it doesn't flow very well. Please R&R.

Oh, and the word was "indispensable."

BGM: "Hoshi Akari" by Jyukai. (Not the lyrics so much as the general easygoing sound.)


	9. Cough Syrup

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

* * *

Cough Syrup

It was cold. Charlie and Izzy were curled up together under their blankets. Dani was evicted from the girls' corner due to cold hands, feet and everything else. I was attempting to break up the inevitable fight she had picked with the boys.

"What the hell, Danielle?"

"Don't call me Danielle!"

"Now, Dani, maybe you should let Jiffy finish?" I said in what I desperately hoped was a placating manner.

"Ha! See, Marta's on our side," Jiffy said triumphantly.

Dani whirled around, glaring at the hyperactive boy. "'Our side'? That's funny, I don't see anyone standing there with you, so you can't be using the plural," she said venomously.

"Carter'd be on my side if he could," Jiffy ranted. "Y'know why he isn't? Cause he's sick, you bitch! He could die!"

I gasped. "Jiffy, language! And no one is dying. Not here and not now. It's only a cold." I said this last in the final tone I reserved for the sort of fights that, without intervention, invariably ended in a parting of ways. I could not, in good conscience, allow a young girl to run off into the cold and wet that was Krator City in January.

"So? Everyone dies," she said bluntly.

Jiffy spluttered, turning red with rage. He tensed, hands tightly curled into fists, half a breath from turning their disagreement physical. I looked on helplessly, knowing that either one of them could do serious damage. If not Dani with her inhuman strength and toxic lights, then Jiffy with his racing mind and augmented limb would surely harm someone in the crossfire. I was the only pure human here, invaluable when dealing with red tape and overbearing officials at the soup kitchen but useless in direct confrontation.

A hacking cough cut through the tension more effectively than a scalpel. Jiffy forgot he had even wanted to fight, turning to Carter and trying not to go any closer. He couldn't afford to get sick, not when there was no medicine available. He looked at me, his grass-green eyes wide and his face drawn with worry.

I sighed, going to the first aid kit and measuring out some of our dwindling supply of cough medicine. We had to keep Carter breathing until his fever broke. It was all we could do.

* * *

A/N: So, a little reveal about the nature of Dani's new home, drama, and flu season with no medicine. There's always the free clinic - pity it's closed until morning. Set a few months after Weeds, Glass and Blanket.

BGM: "Call My Name ~Kazenari no Oka~" by Yucca.


	10. Cage

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

* * *

Cage

Sickness is weakness. Weakness is death. The sick ones never lasted, because if the sick didn't kill them the Inspector would. Malformed creatures growling helplessly, wanting away from the needles that would either burn out the sick, or just burn them out. The Inspectors had needles full of cold-burning liquids and knives that glowed with bright painful energy, waiting for any excuse to use them. I was never sick. I got lucky.

Carter is sick. Carter is stupid, cruel in many small ways. He is sneaky, toying with the telekinetic and fooling the auggie. He never fooled me. Stupidity is death.

Carter is sick now. His brown skin is covered in sweat, white showing through from underneath. His breath comes in short and comes out wet, and he smells like burning. He stinks. We all stink, there's nowhere to wash. Just the showers at the center, once a month if we're lucky. I know we're lucky, because when we wash off the stink we wash off sickness and live a little longer.

Dani knows it too. She smells as bad as we do, but different. She smells new, like an infant stretched out into a body too big for it. The biggest ones always died first, minds too slow too keep up with their growth. The ones that didn't die should have. They weren't themselves, just slaves that would kill for the Inspectors and the Master. I hate thinking about the Master.

Dani had a Master too. She talks in her sleep, calls him "Father" and even "Daddy" but we all know what he really was. A man in a white coat with slick hair and a slick voice and a twisted mind, keeping children in cages. She screams sometimes, and leaks bright green not-blood everywhere. She leaks it when she's awake too, but then she doesn't scream out loud, so her eyes scream instead.

Forget about Masters. Dani knows better, when she's awake. She knows sickness is death, that she would die when she first came her, pale and cold. But Rique did something to her, Rique who smells like melted rock and something else that isn't a smell at all. Dani smells like it too, and that scares me. Dani's Master used something else to make her, the same power that Rique uses even though he's human, the power that makes him smell less like a living thing and more like moving rock.

My eyes aren't very good. Marta says that they are orange, and that I must be colorblind. All I know is I don't need my eyes. My nose and ears and hands and feet tell me what I need to know. They don't tell me what that power is, that lets a baby be in a grown body and still have a mind.

Rique knows why, but he won't even tell himself. Izzy knows, but Marta doesn't listen to her, and what Marta says goes. If Marta leaves, none of us will exist. Marta is different than us. She breaks easier than we do, and she can't see or hear or smell what we do, but she is one of us because we need her. One of us has to be human, or no one will know we exist, and we can't take care of ourselves all the time.

Sickness is death. Carter coughs again, Marta fussing like a mother hen. Izzy says Marta is like a mother. I think that is stupid, that she will not live long enough to reproduce so she cannot be a mother. I don't say it, though. Izzy might be stupid, but she's not stupid because she's dumb. She's stupid because she's a child, the only one here who's the same inside as outside. Izzy is the only real child here. I know that, because she is the only one who admits she's playing pretend.

Marta pretends to be a mother. Rique pretends to be a leader. Jiffy pretends to be tough. Carter pretends to be nice. Charlie pretends to be mature. I pretend to be a person. I don't know what Dani pretends, because I don't know what she is.

She is a baby all stretched out and an old lady all squished in. She played house and led a raid. She lies like a con artist, and tells the truth as she knows it. She says she's been fooled too badly to fool herself any more than she has to. The corners of her lips are up, but her eyes are dead, and I know why the infant has a mind.

It's not the infant's mind. It's the baby's ghost.

* * *

A/N: Dear crap that's creepy! Think about it - Dani was raised (if you can call it that) as a glorified lab animal. She wouldn't think like a middle-class teenager who had memories of a normal childhood (*cough*Danny*cough*) would. Beyond that, Dani isn't fully human. If anyone reading this has read Cordria's fics, you'll have some idea of why she acts creepy. (If not, please go read them.)

Tim was even worse off, so his narration is going to be rather disjointed and Darwinian. And no, I didn't forget poor Beans, it's just that Tim doesn't count Beans. Don't ask why, and please don't flame me.

Ouch. You know, I though about changing the rating for Tim's potty mouth back in Blanket, but this story is turning out very dark. "Mount Ivory", borderline "Lab Rat" dark (credit to MoonrockBlink1772 and AnneriaWings, respectively). Borderline because I don't have the stomach to write graphic torture. Should I change it to M?

BGM: "Call My Name ~Kazenari no Oka~" by Yucca.


	11. Cereal and Milk Bar

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Kakuu Kakokei Majinai" (Utopian Past-Tense Incantation) sung by Suginami Jidou Gasshodan, from the _Revolutionary Girl Utena_ OST 2.

* * *

Cereal and Milk Bar

I had just returned from our weekly food run at the soup kitchen, negotiating with the volunteers while Jiffy grabbed as much food as possible, and Beans held the bag. As the three of us had brought the food, the others would sort from most perishable to least, and decide the order in which we would eat the food, and who would get what. It often caused problems with a new member in the mix, but Danielle was only picky in that she refused to eat pickled asparagus. When Tim nearly passed out from the smell, we agreed never to argue the point again.

"Ooh, sweet! Is this a cereal and milk bar?" Dani asked excitedly.

Amused, Rique shook his head and replied, "Yes, Dani. Lots of tooth-rotting goodness."

"Stop harshing the poor kid's mellow, old geezer," Carter threw in.

Charlie looked at him incredulously. "I'm not sure whether I should laugh at your outdated slang or hit you for insulting Rique."

"Since when do you care if we call him names?" Carter asked, backing away out of kicking range of her very heavy old boots.

"Since Dani cares, and I like Dani." She turned to the younger girl and they high-fived, then turned back to the sorting.

"Rique! Come on, man, you're not going to let the girls gang up on us, are you?" he whined.

Rique gave him the what-the-crap look. "'Us', Cart? There is no 'us' here, there is me and there is the whiny brat that just called me an old geezer."

"Burn!"

"Oh, shut up, Dani," Carter muttered, attempting to separate a soda can from what was left of the plastic ties from a six-pack. "And why are you so excited, anyway? You've seen cereal bars before."

"No, I haven't. Not in real life," she said indignantly. I shook my head in some measure of confusion. It was only a prepackaged snack.

"Why not? And if you've never seen one, how come you know what it is?" Carter pressed, not willing to give up the issue. That boy was worse than a dog with a bone some days. Well, most days.

"I've seen it in commercials, dumbface. I like standing outside electronics stores and watching the TV displays."

Carter had nothing to say to that. He often did the same thing with Jiffy, at least until they were chased off for loitering. He opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly a shadow passed over him.

Dani looked up over her shoulder, impervious as ever to his glares and forbidding aura. "Hi, Tim."

He nodded at her, reached over and picked out a few containers of tuna. I gave him a questioning look, and he answered, "Rancid. I'll throw them out." I nodded in thanks. Tim was never one for unnecessary words, but his enhanced sense of smell was invaluable for spotting and eliminating contaminated foodstuffs before they could make someone ill.

Carter shuddered at the sight of Tim's hands, and Dani and Rique gave him a united don't-you-dare-say-it glare. Dani was the only one who got along with Tim, and Rique did not approve of infighting. I fully approved of his policy. "'We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.' Benjamin Franklin," I quoted.

"Not another quote," Carter griped. Charlie whacked him on the back of the head, giving him a dirty look.

"You've said more than enough, you little jerk," she snapped.

"What? What did I do?"

Charlie inclined her head to her right, indicating Dani. She was sitting very still, the white-and-tan plastic package being slowly crushed in her hand.

"Hey. Dani. I know you're upset, but what did that poor little cereal bar ever do to you?" Rique joked gently. Every time he saw the bandages that covered her right hand, he was hit with a wave of guilt, and I knew that he would try his hardest not to let any harm come to the new girl again. He would eventually fail, of course, but people need their hopes and dreams to live. And it was such a small dream.

"Marta?" I looked at her, startled. I had been supervising from my seat on top of an old orange crate, attempting to untangle one of Izzy's odd little bracelets. Dani had not directly spoken to me since the sorting began, preferring to focus on the food. Curious as to what she wanted to say, I slid off and tiptoed between the piles over to Dani.

"Yes, dear?" She gave me a flat look at the term of endearment, and I cringed inwardly. Right. Dani doesn't like sappiness.

"Forget it," she said. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her full height, still nearly a foot shorter than I was. "Marta, how old do you think I am?"

I blinked. Where in the world had that come from? I studied the little girl. She was small and had the stretched-out look of the underfed, but I knew she had the beginnings of breasts under her bulky sweater. If she was just beginning puberty, then perhaps…

"Twelve years old?" I queried.

She laughed, but it was a short coughing sound with no joy or humor in it. "Physically, sure. And mentally, probably. He never told me what the results of all those intelligence tests actually were. He'd just pat my head and I'd lap it up like the dumb kid I was." She looked straight at me, but only saw him. Curse the madman to death by his own experiments.

"You were never dumb, Dani. Mad scientists are either social retards or con artists. There's not much in between," Charlie put in, a hand clamped over Carter's mouth as she dragged him away. There was a time and a place for jokes at the new kid's expense, and this was not it.

I smiled as Rique and Charlie removed a struggling Carter from the room. No one needed him to say something stupid at the wrong moment, and I doubted that Dani wanted witnesses to this conversation. Tim was nowhere to be seen, although that didn't mean he wasn't around somewhere. Dani was still unstable now, and after what happened with Sara, we knew better than to leave me alone with an augmented human without a guard.

I turned back to Dani and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me, startled, and then put her left hand over my right. Good, so she didn't reject contact when under stress. Her shoulders slumped, and I heard her mutter something under her breath. I leaned closer, trying to hear. "What is it, Dani?"

"I said I'm almost six."

"What?" I gasped. "You're six years old?" Accelerated aging? Oh Lord, that madman stole a child off the street and messed with her lifespan! How bad was it? Would she die soon?

"No!" she yelled.

I stepped back, scared. Not of her, for her, but Dani must have misread my expression. "I knew it. I'm just a useless freak, after all. I can't even use my powers."

"Dani, whatever extra-human abilities you may or may not have, those don't matter." Hurriedly, I continued before she could misinterpret my words any further, "You're you, Dani. I don't care if you're six years old or sixty. You're one of us."

"Really?" she snorted. "It sure didn't seem like it earlier."

Knowing exactly what she meant, I tsked and decided Carter would have extra cleaning duty tomorrow. "Carter is one of us, too. Unfortunately, he's something of an ungrateful brat. Feel free to tune him out. Charlie does, and they've fought much less since she started."

She sniffed, not acknowledging the wetness around her eyes. "Thanks, Marta. Only, um…"

"Um?"

"You didn't really get it, or more like I didn't say it right."

"Say what?" I asked with some trepidation. Oh no, she was dying, wasn't she?

"I'm not six years old."

"Didn't you just say-"

"Not six years old." She inhaled deeply, finishing the rest in one breath. "I'm six months old, and I wasn't really born. I was decanted."

Decanted. Made. A sentient construct, a created child. The realization sank in, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. No wonder she acted as though she knew nothing about the world sometimes – she hadn't had time to learn. Of course she wouldn't understand our mourning a traitor – she probably hadn't even had any mind of her own until recently, any will to disobey. Without a second thought, I picked her up and held her tight, feeling small arms I had seen make bracelets and break steel wrap around my waist.

There was nothing one could say to that.

* * *

A/N: Why a cereal and milk bar? I remember being really excited when I was little and first saw the commercials for them, and then being disappointed at the saccharine-sweet taste.

Marta is a mother hen, and Dani needed a hug. Marta is turning into something of a less-sneaky Jazz expy, isn't she? Oops.

As for the "mourning a traitor" line - all will be explained eventually (think Terra from the Teen Titans cartoon). This takes place around December 20, 2006, between Blanket and Birdseed.


	12. Silk

Disclaimer: I don't own DP or _Charlotte's Web_ by E. B. White.

BGM: "Aozora no Namida" by Takahashi Hitomi.

* * *

Silk

I didn't talk much when I was little. I was always sick. My throat hurt, or I was puking, or I was just miserable and tired and didn't want to deal with it. Every day, there were new stains on my old cotton sheets. My parents both had to work, so they didn't have time to deal with a sick daughter. If I couldn't be healthy, the least I could do was stay out of the way.

No one really wanted to talk to me, at least until the day I met my _nainai_, my father's mother. She was small and wrinkled and soft, and she smelled like rice flour and the silk cloth her family had traded in. Her husband had died before I was born, and my maternal grandparents had never made it out of China. No one talked about them.

Nainai talked a lot. She talked about her childhood friends, days spent tending to the store and nights sleeping with all her sisters to keep warm. She told me how she had gotten lucky and been married to a man who taught her to read, so she would not embarrass him in public when his foreign business partners came by. She told me about how he died, and I promised I would not tell my parents. She told me stories about gods and immortals, about dragons and rainbirds and a crazy but kind old monk.

Nainai told me that names have meaning. Ling Xiang – lucky bell, like music. I told her that name didn't fit me at all, so she asked me what name I would have liked better. I didn't know, so I went through all the stories I knew. I found my real name in an old book about a pig and a spider. It was a name I would share with great people – and lots of plain ordinary people too. People that could do anything, outside of our little room.

Sara told me once that the name "Charles" had two meanings. The first was "man." Nuts to that. The second was a really old German word or something. "_Hari_" – army, warrior. An army of one that would not admit defeat, even after the worst betrayal. That was the first time I really understood the name I had chosen, and the first time I could accept the foreign name my parents gave me.

I named myself after a wise spider, and spider's silk is stronger than steel. I was weak, but now I am strong and healthy. I was a child, believing lies and stories with equal trust. I'm not really a kid anymore, except I am. I'm the poor little sick girl that made herself keep going past the pain. I'm the spider the world couldn't squish. I'm Charlie. Who the hell are you?

* * *

A/N: Yes, I know the BGM is Japanese. It fit her character, OK? Anyway, there you have it. Charlie is Chinese-American. She thought of her birth name as foreign because her parents didn't live in a Chinese neighborhood, and it was just one more thing separating her from everyone else.

Yes, I will explain Sara later. This one was about Charlie, not Sara. What do you think about the name I picked out for her? I got it from behindthename. com. According to www. kwanfamily. info/ culture/ familytitles_ table. php (remove spaces first), _nai nai_ is the most common term for paternal grandmother in Mandarin Chinese. I don't actually know diddly-squat about Chinese names and grammar. If anyone reading this does, feel free to correct any flub-ups or offer suggestions on how to improve my story. Please. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Eh. I'm not too happy with the beginning, but I've been slacking and wanted to at least update something. No particular time period for this.

EDIT: Changed her name.


	13. Shoes

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Falling Down" by Oasis (The Prodigy Remix)

* * *

Shoes

_Not everyone is born whole_.

Krator City was built by weird science and madmen. Sanity is in short supply, and lives are even shorter. It's pretty common to fall asleep human and wake up a mutated monster. If you're lucky, not enough of your mind survives the transformation to know what happened.

Other times, people are born weird. Take me, Jeremy Francis Geary, born on a partly cloudy night in April. I have normal parents and a weird uncle, and they all live in a tiny dump of a house in a middling-lousy part of town on the east side, within sight of the river. Close to the river, it's a quiet area with no major human criminals to worry about. Unfortunately, this was the same river the kooks dumped their waste into, which means that even with filters in, the local tap water was not safe – and that's not even getting into the plant life or the fumes.

I was normal, mostly. I had the right number of limbs and heads and eyes and things, and I hit most of my developmental milestones right on target. Except walking. That was kind of difficult for me, on account of my right leg being more of a withered stump below the knee. I managed anyways, using a crutch to move around. I had two good arms and one good leg, and according to the local clinic I didn't have any other deformities. No weird genetic illnesses that would kill me young, no nasty autoimmune problems. I just had a bum leg. I could deal with that.

I dealt with it, and so did my parents. It wasn't so bad. Dad was a cubicle drone in a little office building on the west side, doing grown-up paperwork-y stuff. It was boring, so I didn't pay much attention. Mom stayed with me until I was old enough to go to day care, and then she got a job at a local market. I went to day care from when I was three to when I was five, then kindergarten, then the local elementary school. My leg made be a bit of a bully magnet, since I couldn't walk fast or run at all. I didn't mind. Kip and Scott would still play with me once they went away.

They were a couple of kids from my neighborhood that I knew from day care. Kip had gills on his sides, and he had to splash them with water a few times a day, and then put this funny clear stuff on them so they wouldn't dry out. He had webbed hands, too, and a clear third eyelid that closed sideways. Scott was human-normal, but he had kooks in his family, so I could tell him why I was scared of my uncle.

Don't get me wrong, Uncle John was cool. He always had the neatest light-up toys and funniest stories, and he knew all sorts of things, like why the sky is blue (light diffraction) and how much energy it takes to stop a heart (60 amperes of AC current, or 300-500 amperes of DC current). He also had Hypercognitive Dementia, or HCD – mad scientist disease. The meds kept the worst of the symptoms off, so he was usually funny-weird, not crazy-weird.

Those little yellow pills were expensive, but he was family, so every month my parents forked over a hundred dollars for thirty little yellow pills to keep him sane. It wasn't like he could get a job himself. No one would hire a mad scientist, meds or no meds. After all, how would they know if he was really taking them or just faking?

I used to think that was really dumb of them, not trusting my favorite Uncle John. He was nice, and he hated liars. He'd never lie about something like that! Again, I used to think that. See, my uncle might have been a nice guy, but as Mom put it, "That man has all the common sense of a starving guppy." He knew he had to take the meds, and he would never have missed a dose on purpose. He didn't have to.

Some years were better than others. The year I turned eleven and started middle school, everything went to heck in a broken basket. On the first day of school, everything was like normal. Scott stuck the chopsticks from his lunch (leftover takeout from Wong's Wok) in his nose, and Kip spilled his milk. I got to eat school lunch. Hooray for unidentifiable greenish stuff.

Then the bullies stuck me in a trash can, headfirst. The so-called teachers never believed me, so Kip played decoy while Scott helped out of the trash can. We managed to go the rest of the day without too much trouble. I guess I should have noticed they were acting weird. Kip normally complained a lot more than that.

The first few weeks were okay, but the guys started to act weird around me. Kip always had slightly enhanced strength and stamina compared to a human-normal, let alone a cripple. Now that he was getting out of the fragile juvenile stage, the swim team tried to recruit him. Kip wanted to be accepted, and I didn't mind that. Everyone wants to fit in. Scott wasn't particularly strong or smart, but he listened and did what he was told – primo future minion material. He wound up as a gopher for all the kooks-in-potentia.

I'm smart; really, really smart and not good with people, so I figured I'd make friends with the nerds. I wasn't enough of an escapist for the D&D club. I couldn't act and hated crowds, so the Drama geeks didn't fit either. Art? No talent. Anime club? I didn't really get what the big deal was about guys with mind-control powers and insta-monsters. We have those at home. The science types were all future kooks or minions, and those were already a big no way. Kooks really didn't like it when human-normals "move in on their territory."

Eventually, I did find a place. Believe it or not, there was a club for Future Stage Magicians of America, and it was _fun_. I learned how to make it look like I was doing one thing while I was doing another, how to hide coins with little bits of paper and string, and how to make fake flowers appear out of thin air. It was so much fun; I could almost forget why I needed real friends. Unfortunately, fate didn't.

Mom got sick, way beyond what her insurance would pay for. This wouldn't have been such a problem if it was normal sick, but she had river sickness. See, for every seven or eight folks that get freaky mutations a hundred people get nasty mutations. Their lungs shrivel up, they get seizures and drool a lot, or their skin explodes off their bodies one bit at a time. River sickness is not a good way to die, and it's almost never treatable. Mom had one of the quieter cases – her skeletal muscles stopped being able to repair themselves. Her internal organs worked fine, but she couldn't move at all. Her bones just sort of floated around and hit stuff. She had to go into the hospital for good. They moved her into the "senescent" ward, the one where all the incurable stuff went. I knew she'd die, river sickness was a killer, and I got so scared. I got desperate. I got stupid, and no one was around to stop me.

Dad was busy working overtime to pay for the hospital on top of our usual rent/electric/water bills and crap. Kip and Scott didn't want anything to do with the cripple that played with cups and balls. Kip might lose his new girlfriend, and Scott might not get the right master when they started breaking through. And me? I couldn't get a paper route, because I didn't have two feet to pedal a bike. I couldn't sell chocolate bars, because I could only walk so far before the crutch started rubbing my armpit and my foot got sore and my stump started throbbing. I couldn't even do chores, because anything but washing dishes and setting the table required being able to walk and bend over and pick things up with both hands.

Before Uncle John was diagnosed, he had specialized in cybernetics. Sane cybernetics means pacemakers and prosthetic arms and stuff like that. Mad cybernetics was everything from multicolored hair implants to Frankenstein's monster knockoffs. Uncle was just a few missed doses from regressing and losing his conscience, so he'd agree to any crazy thing as long as it didn't run counter to his obsession. I switched his remaining pills for March with sugar pills, tiny yellow oval sugar pills that were a dead ringer for his meds. I hoped that between the placebo effect and Dad's constant tiredness, no one would notice he was backsliding.

Five days in, I gave him a brochure from a store in the Heights, with lots of pictures of medical supplies. Six days in, I brought him pictures of artificial limbs, especially legs. One week in, I left a book of medical success stories lying around, making sure that the lines about anesthetic and safety measures were highlighted and triple underlined. I was desperate, but not enough to willingly go through a major operation without anesthetic. Two weeks in, I asked Uncle John if he'd put a new leg on me. He said yes, on the condition I addressed him as "Doctor Ironfist" from then on. I would have called him the King of France, if I had to. I just wanted to be useful.

So, he got the stuff and prepped a clean room in a little rent-a-lab building nearby. Mad scientist, not stupid. He didn't want to lose a perfectly good, docile and willing experimental subject to a little thing like germs. Of course, there are laws about not operating on a minor without a medical license, proper facilities and parental consent, but he wasn't really my Uncle John now. He was a kook, and kooks couldn't care less about unimportant details like laws and morality. Again, I was very, very stupid back then.

Three weeks into March, I went under with three-quarters of a leg and woke up with two pieces of one. The top was my leg cut off above the knee, plus a flat-bottomed metal thing with lots of wires and plugs sticking out of it. Turns out my knee was too deformed to attach anything to it, so he'd had to put the joint in the prosthesis. The prosthesis was a hunk of metal shaped like most of a leg, with adjustable joints, outer plates and internal structures so I could make it bigger as necessary as I grew. It's kind of weird how easy it was to get him to agree to that. The bigger the challenge, the more the kook wanted to do it. These days, I'm really glad that feature worked.

The actual operation was the easy part for me. I mean, I was unconscious the whole time. After that was the really painful part – he had to calibrate the leg's circuitry to take orders from and respond to my nervous system. Obviously general anesthetic would screw up the signals. He did find a local anesthetic to help take the edge off, but it really wasn't strong enough. He gave me this rubber thing to bite (I think it was a gag) and set all the connections one by one. Speaking from experience, getting a limb's worth of new nerves really freaking hurts. I still flash back sometimes.

As crazy as he was, Ironfist knew just what he was doing. I haven't had any problems with the leg since then, except for some minor adjustments I had to make when puberty kicked in and I started growing. I take it in for tune-ups to the local tech guy. Too bad it costs so much – I'd like to keep my share of the profits for once.

I had no problems with the leg, once I got used to it and finished the rehab. Trust me, doing exercises on half-healed flesh attached to metal with no medical equipment around is not fun. See, I was happy about it and Ironfist was happy about it, but no one else was. Dad hit the roof when he found out what I did, and turned Ironfist in to the authorities. I was planning on leaving an "anonymous tip" anyways, so that worked out. Then he confined me to my room, which wasn't very big and made it very hard to do my exercises. I know he was mad at me, but he didn't have to handcuff me to the bed. I only got let off for bathroom breaks and trips to the clinic to make sure my leg wouldn't suddenly drop off or something. He wouldn't even let me have ibuprofen! Raw nerves really, _really_ hurt!

Anyway, he let me off the cuffs for my birthday. The first thing I did was hobble to the bathroom. The second thing I did was open Uncle John's early birthday present. He'd given it to me on March 6th, when he was still mostly my timid, awkward nice-guy uncle. I was really happy because it didn't sound like clothes, but he made me promise not to open it until my birthday. I was really careful not to let Dad see the wrapping paper, so he wouldn't know I had a present and figure out who it was from. The paper was gold, with red and green pinstripes. I think it was leftover from the Christmas season. I peeled it off and folded it up carefully, and hid the paper in the big pocket on my sweater. You never know when you'll need paper.

Underneath, there was a shoebox. This didn't really surprise me, since store-bought gifts (let alone actual gift boxes) were a little out of Uncle John's price range. Uncle John never spent the money he had saved up from his younger days, except on chewing gum and the Sunday paper. Neither of those are exactly expensive. Apparently, Ironfist didn't mind spending money, because what was inside was my favorite birthday present ever.

It was a pair of shoes. Not just any shoes, but brown-and-yellow Converto Move-Em's. Sure, the color scheme was lame, but these were the fancy shoes all the popular kids were wearing. I was eleven, and I wanted them. I also knew I would never have them, not even cheap knockoffs. After all, I only had one foot, so why bother buying shoes? My shoe was always a mismatch lefty from the local charity. I didn't hate it, but I wanted to wear real shoes, just once.

I put them on, yanking a sock over my left foot and tying on the left Move-Em. Then it was time for the right one. I'd never actually worn anything on it, so I was worried, but if Dad saw the shoes and knew they were from Uncle he'd throw them out. Perfectly good shoes, wasted. I carefully pulled on a formerly-white sock matching the left one, and then turned to the remaining shoe. I picked it up, shaking it out to make sure there were no bits of paper left inside. Slowly, I slid the foot inside, hissing as the resistance traveled up metal and plastic up to still-healing nerves and connective tissue. Ow.

I swung my feet – feet! – over the edge of the bed and stood up. I was still unsteady, not used to balancing on both legs instead of a crutch. I kept a hand on the wall, careful not to tip over. At a month into rehab, I figured I could walk at least to the neighbors and find out what had happened. Listening for any sign of Dad, I snuck out the kitchen through the back yard, going through the broken fence section into Mrs. Murray's yard. Mrs. Murray was pretty easygoing about kids cutting through her yard, as long as we didn't trample her petunias. I have no idea which flowers those are. I just avoided all of them. Smart kids avoided flowers anyway. The showier and nicer-smelling it was, the better the chance it was a lure for something hungry that would have liked how I taste. Have I mentioned the monster plant life around the river? It takes guts to garden there.

I went up to Mrs. Murray's back door and knocked politely. After a few minutes I heard a muffled gasp. The door flew open, and a surprisingly strong old hand yanked me inside and slammed it shut behind me. Mrs. Murray had on the old pants and blouse she always had on when she gardened after a rain, when the plants were more active than usual. I gulped, realizing what a close call I'd had.

"Mrs. Murray, I'm so sorry about this. I didn't notice it was raining, but it's muddy outside so of course it rained, and I'm pretty stupid, and, um," I babbled. I looked up, expecting her to be giving me the usual disapproving dumb-kid look. She looked really mad instead, until she noticed me backing out and slumped down.

"Oh, Jeremy. You don't know, do you?" she asked pityingly. Her tone turned bitter as she started to go on about the stupidity of Mr. Geary and the madness of the Faulkner clan. That was when I really got scared.

"Know what, Mrs. Murray? What don't I know?"

She pulled me over to a chair and waved impatiently waved at me to sit down. I sat. Then she looked me in the eye and calmly explained that a few days after my procedure, my mother had gotten the truth about what her brother had done out of the hospital staff. Dad found her with her breathing tube ripped out. No one could rule out sabotage, not with her so-called family, but it was probably suicide.

Anyone who didn't know Mrs. Murray very well wouldn't have noticed how much her hands were shaking, or how her voice was just a bit higher-pitched and her breathing was just a little faster than normal. Anyone would have seen me crumple like Pinocchio with his strings cut, a stupid little boy turning into an animal. It was all my fault. If I hadn't wanted to try and fix things, to think that if I could just walk properly like Mom wanted me to, she wouldn't be dead. She still would have died, but it would have been much later, and she would have died happy knowing her family was still whole. I broke it. I broke Uncle John, I broke Mom, I broke Dad, I break everything!

When I finally snapped out of it, I was lying on the sidewalk next to an abandoned school. The prosthesis had a safety feature, a shock of pain that would make me stop whatever I was doing if it started to malfunction. I knew I probably tore ligaments, and who knows what else, but I didn't care. I broke my family, the most important thing in the world. I didn't deserve to live.

That was when Carter found me. Brownish skin, bald as an egg and no eyebrows. Either a mutation or a lab escapee, and I'm sure they thought I was the latter. How could I tell anyone that my own uncle had experimented on me, and that I planned the whole thing? No. Better to keep quiet, nod and smile and not cause trouble and _do what I was told_ so something like this could never happen again.

Rique carried me to the free clinic. Marta took care of me after that. Carter put up with me the whole time, even when I was feverish and helpless and useless. I'll always be grateful to him, even if he is kind of a bully. Charlie got in a prank war with us about a week after she showed up. Izzy is ridiculously cutesy, and it's a miracle she survived long enough for Marta to go all Mama Wolf on her. Tim is scary. Beans is okay, but I really don't want to think about Sara. I broke my family, but I never wanted anyone to suffer. I don't understand how she could do that to me, to all of us.

I'm not eleven anymore. I outgrew my first pair of shoes a long time ago, and traded them for supplies as soon as I could.

I still have the paper.

_No one is born whole. We are all pieces of something much bigger than ourselves, and every action we make has an equal and opposite reaction. If you fix one thing, you break another and pick up the pieces afterwards_.

* * *

A/N: Yes, Jiffy has issues. Yes, this was narrated by Jiffy. Jeremy Francis? Hello? Geary is a real last name. I got it from surnames. behindthename. com. The bit about how much electricity it takes to cause fibrillation, which leads to cardiac arrest, is from the Wikipedia article on electric shock. The rest is from memory and imagination, which means I've probably gotten a lot of medical facts wrong. If anyone has better information, feel free to correct me in a review.

Krator City is a freaking pit.

Shoes is a background fic like Silk, and takes place at no particular point in the timeline. I'm just trying to flesh out my OCs. Also, I now have something of an established order for their arrival at the Store. We'll see how accurate this turns out. Jiffy turned out to be not entirely sane, and a fairly unreliable narrator.


	14. Chains

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "COLORS" by FLOW.

* * *

Chains

She had made her choice a long time ago. She shattered her chains, her heart, everything, so that she would be as light and free as a feather far above the world of man. Freedom was everything. She knew this. So why did it hurt so much?

The girl looked down to her left, child-creature's misshapen limbs stretched out and tensed against impact. Before him, burning magician boy and dead-alive girl were glowing red and green, festive colors that did not belong in this place, at this time. Beyond him, brothers-in-spirit, sure as steel and rushing streams lean on one another, brave faces over mind-bending terror. Behind him, little mother cradles her child-of-the-heart close, whispering prayers and little girl lullabies to ease a breaking heart. Over the girl's right shoulder, rock boy frowns and stands against enemies that will shatter him like chips of wood under an ax. The girl closes her eyes. She does not need to see them. They are her family, just as the mouse woman and turtle man, and the tiny laughing cricket old lady, were her old family.

She opens her eyes. This is not a time to be spider hiding in her web, wreathed in silk. She had chosen the spider's web and its deadly poison as protection, one fearsome enough that no enemy would dare to come close. Now was not time to be the spider. Now, the chains that bound her to this spot called for strength.

Strength of body was and always would be beyond her. Her strength was in her very name. She was the soaring spirit, and she would not be bound except by her own will. Family, friends, these were heavy iron chains that dragged her to earth. Family was the warmth that brought her through a cold winter night. Friends were moonlit roads, spreading a million ways with every word spoken. She had only to choose to throw off the chains.

To cast off the chains, she only had to leave. And that was one thing she would never do again.

The girl wound her scarf tighter around her hand, cloth armor her only weapon. The others trusted her to guard the right, and she would. She had to be the spiderweb that stopped all enemies before they could even try to take their lives. She was, in truth, a soaring wind and a sound of chimes among silver clouds and gold leaves. She closes her eyes, trusting her minds' eye following the rough silk cloth of her grandmother's scarf. Leaving arms and legs and body behind, she sent herself into the wind, trusting her family to bring her back.

* * *

A/N: This is something of a sequel to Silk, and it takes place near the end of the planned storyline for CHI, late summer 2007. Next up, a cheerful interlude and second-ever actual story arc. That's right, it's Christmas time in the SR Verse! (The irony here is that I don't actually celebrate Christmas.) I know it's way out of order. Except in the middle of story arcs, I'll be posting ideas as I get them.

Can you tell I've been reading a lot of Bleach fics lately? Speaking of, I'm going to make sure my muse hasn't overdosed on espresso again. Please R&R.


	15. Winter Coat

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Chikaigoto ~ Sukoshi Dake Mou Ichido" ("Oath ~ Just a Little, Once More") by IKU.

* * *

Winter Coat

An unearthly noise rang out, and someone kicked me.

"Ow! The fuck?" I jumped up, braced for trouble.

"You should know better than to swear around little kids," Charlie snorted, hand braced against a fallen box of odds and ends. I was not picking that up.

I slumped, annoyed. "Why am I awake when it's this cold?"

"Izzy woke the others already, but no one wanted to set off your alarm."

"Wait, why-" Then the penny dropped, and I forgot all about being tired. I straightened up and grabbed my hat off the shelf, stuffing my arms through the sleeves of my coat. It was this annoying scratchy wool thing I got for cheap at a thrift store, but it was big and sturdy enough that I could get a few more years out of it. "Hurry up and get dressed," I muttered, distracted.

"I am dressed," she snarked fondly. No, I don't know how that's possible. She's Charlie, she's weird by default. She spread her arms, showing off a bulky barfy-army-green peacoat over her red winter sweater. It was cold and the store was drafty, so we all slept in our clothes most of the time. The limited supply of clothing meant that utility came first, so the color combinations could be pretty funny.

"Hey, you are dressed," I smirked. Charlie gave me a flat look, daring me to keep talking. "And in red and green, the colors of the season! How precious."

She raised a thin eyebrow, tilting her nose up. It takes a special kind of person to look snobbish in old army boots and oversized black cargo pants (more of a faded gray, really), but Charlie could pull it off. She sniffed, turning gracefully on one heel. Then she stuck her tongue out at me. "Shows what you know, Ricky Ricardo. I'm Buddhist. I don't celebrate Christmas in the first place."

I followed her to the front where the rest of the gang was waiting. Tim was brooding, Carter and Jiffy were trying to fight, Beans was standing between them like the proverbial brick wall and the girls were jumping around like, well, overexcited little girls. Marta was looking very frazzled, and pathetically grateful to see the only other borderline sane people in the store were ready to go. Let Charlie have the last word. It's Christmas.

* * *

A/N: Rique seems like the sort of person who'd be very touchy when he wakes up, right until there's something he needs or wants to do. Bleh, Charlie is turning out rather Sam-ish. And no, his name isn't Ricky Ricardo. It's one of Charlie's nicknames for him, and a reference to I Love Lucy. Rique despises that nickname.

Finally, a new story arc! We get to find out how the kids get clothes and food, and some holiday fluff. Takes place on December 25, 2006, a little while before Cough Syrup and Cage.

EDIT: Some minor grammar fixes and a timing discrepancy.


	16. Tether

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Chikaigoto ~ Sukoshi Dake Mou Ichido" ("Oath ~ Just a Little, Once More") by IKU.

* * *

Tether

Skirt swishing around my legs and shawl pulled tight around my shoulders, I breathed into my cold hands and went over the plan again. Today was Christmas, and just as I had my first year here, I would be making the perilous journey west with the others. The greatest difference was that this year, I would not be the timid newcomer hiding in the center of our group. No, this year I was one of the oldest members, and it was up to me to keep the children in line so the guards could do their job. I could not afford to be timid. That didn't stop me from being frightened, and wishing we didn't have to go through so much trouble just for a day's respite. One can only hope things won't end badly this year.

"Marta? Are you okay?" I jumped, surprised. The new girl - no, Dani was poking my right arm, looking up at me with a mixture of concern and curiosity. Then her eyebrows lifted, her eyes squeezed shut and her hand came up to slap her forehead. "Sorry, standard question. I know you're not, but it's what people say in this situation, right? Or is that only on TV?"

I smiled. Dani could be so funny sometimes. Then I remembered what she had told me very recently, and found yet another problem to worry about. "You really don't know if that's the right question?" I asked softly, not wanting anyone to overhear. It was Dani's secret to tell.

She shrugged. "Not so much, no. Did I mess up badly, or was that just a minor goof?"

"It is, in fact, a socially acceptable response to another person being visibly upset. It shows that you have noticed their distress, and gives them a choice of responses rather than making one feel as though they have an obligation to confess," I explained seriously. Whatever her true age, Dani would not appreciate being talked down to. If she was intelligent to consider the consequences of her words and actions, she was smart enough to understand even my overly-complicated explanations.

Dani grinned. "It worked!" she cheered.

"Yay!" Izzy echoed from somewhere behind me.

In my experience, "it worked" ranked just below "it lives" on the scale of things one did not want to hear. "Dani? What exactly worked?" I asked worriedly.

"My brilliant plan to cheer you up, of course," she said. "Or, at least it was working…"

"Oh." What a relief. I smiled. Dani was so nice to me. It was a pity the boys had provoked her into joining the so-called prank war so early on. Carter and Jiffy were now convinced that she was some form of hell-spawn. I stopped suddenly as though I'd reached the end of a tether. Could they be on the right track after all?

No, never. _She_ had been nothing but awkwardly sweet at all times, shy and gentle to a fault. Only Tim, who was always suspicious and rarely listened to in those days, had noticed just how false and superficial her perfection was.

Dani was unpredictable, and as likely to push Jiffy into a puddle as she was to help him out of one, but she was direct about her unpredictability. She showed kindness and respect to others in response to their own. She would put slime on Carter's favorite seat, but had vehemently voted against Charlie's offhand suggestion of thumbtacks in his blanket. I chuckled into my hand, trying to muffle my laughter. Oh, the look on poor Carter's face. It was true, she didn't exactly act normal, but no one in the Store was normal.

_Enough reminiscing_, I chided myself. I turned to check on the others. Rique, Beans and Carter were in the front. Rique was both charismatic and nonthreatening enough to draw attention away from the rest of us without seeming hostile. Carter could talk his way out of nearly anything, and Beans was just plain big (and fairly intimidating to those who were unfamiliar with him). Tim was behind me, keeping an eye on the more vulnerable members of the group, namely Izzy and myself. Tim had served as a guard on our rare excursions across the river since joining the group, but he had no grasp of social subtleties and no desire to learn. Today, Jiffy was acting as a buffer between Tim and any bystanders or potential hostiles that came by. Dani had cheerfully agreed to keep an eye on Izzy to make sure she didn't wander off into danger. Charlie was weaving around the others, obscuring the formation and covering Tim's blind spots. Everyone was in place. Good.

We would continue on in this way to the tollbooths. Only Jiffy, Carter and I had ever had Krator City papers, and they had all long since expired. It cost fifty dollars to cross the river going west, no exceptions (unless one was a wealthy kook "just visiting"). Obviously, a group of homeless minors, some of whom had no legal status at all, would not have access to that amount of capital. This left us with two possible options. The first was to procure the money, one way or another, ahead of time. Unfortunately, our total savings after paying for Carter's medication and treatment amounted to less than a hundred dollars, and there was no more time. The other option was to either wait for or cause a disturbance large enough to distract the guards, lose ourselves in the crowd and sneak across.

For the plan to work, timing was crucial. We would only have a few minutes in which to find or create the necessary distraction. Any longer, and the police would drive us off for loitering. If one or more of us was creating the distraction, they would be at increased risk of capture. Chewing my lip, I considered the best possible candidates. Tim was far too distinctive and confrontational. Beans wasn't very bright or stealthy. Rique couldn't tell a plausible lie, even to save his life. Jiffy was a possibility, but he wasn't the best actor, and if his leg malfunctioned he would have no way to escape. Izzy was too easily distracted herself, and far too young. I was an equally bad choice, if only because I couldn't run away very quickly. That, and I am absolutely useless at anything requiring improvisation. I bit back a curse, not wanting to hurt little Izzy's sensitive ears, and resigned myself to "winging it". I nodded to Tim and signaled my intentions to Charlie as I went forward to consult with Rique. This was not going to be easy.

I do love Christmas, but I have to wonder if a few presents and a new bit of clothing or so was worth all this trouble to get everyone across. Then I look at the pathetic, faded and torn scraps that were all we had to wear and the hollow, haunted looks on the little one's faces, and I steel myself. No so-called police would stop me from keeping my family alive and as well as I could get them, not in a million years! If all I can procure is sustenance dependent on others' charity, it is because charity still exists in this rotten city. If all I can offer is a bit of damp cloth and a few words of comfort, it is because I am too unlearned and unskilled to heal their ills yet. If all I can give them is a moment's fleeting peace, then I will. The store will never be a home, but it will be safe haven as long as I can make it so.

Lord, please watch over Your children, and give them the home I cannot. Amen.

* * *

A/N: For the record, my character's opinions are not mine. I am not the sort of person who stuffs religion down people's throats. Marta is rather quiet and precise about it, but she is a devout Christian (not sure which denomination). This is a part of her character, as being Buddhist is part of Charlie's character.


	17. Cot

Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Jane Doe" by Within Temptation.

* * *

Cot

She wriggled restlessly, unable to find a comfortable position. After a few minutes of this, she gave up and flopped off the borrowed cot and onto the floor. She sat up against the side and sighed with relief. Even if the frame wasn't very sturdy, at least she had something at her back.

Closing her eyes, she thought of flowers and ribbons and little-girl bubblegum dreams and drifted away.

In a circle of stones, two children fought, the scene starkly illuminated by pale moonlight under an empty sky, glinting off a thousand and one shards of silvered glass.

One was a scrawny girl-woman, skin stained an artificial tan and hair bleached paper-white, clothed all in black, crouched in a corner, teeth bared in a desperate grimace. One a mockery of childhood, skin drained porcelain blue-white and hair stained red-brown, dressed in white and red, stood atop a ruined altar, fangs bared in a feral grin. The little monster raised one clawed, red-gloved hand and shot rays of bright red-black energy at the other girl. The other dodged, scrambling for cover, hiding behind scorched and shattered stones.

Lips moving in prayer, or perhaps an empty plea for mercy, she raised one bare, too-thin hand and shaped the light around her into a shield, a flat mirror-pane of green substance and white reflection, and ran like the hordes of hell were chasing her. _Not_, she thought as her flimsy shield shattered for a thousandth time, _that the creature I'm fleeing wouldn't fit right in_.

She stopped short, trapped between a pile of rocks and a monster. It wasn't even a choice. She swallowed hard and began climbing up the hill, ignoring the rivulets of faintly growing green that flowed onto the rock from the stinging gashes in her unprotected hands and thinly-guarded feet. _Dancing slippers. What a practical choice in footwear. I'd think my subconscious wanted me dead, if I didn't already know that was true_.

She reached the top of the hill – no, not a hill, she saw. It was a cliff, and she was standing at the peak of the nasty side, and she couldn't fly. She glanced back over her shoulder. That thing, she knew, would only gain power the longer this went on, but it couldn't be helped. She wasn't ready to take it on. _I just hope I remember this, for once_.

Screwing her eyes shut, she threw herself out into the crimson sky and-

She woke up screaming. Why, why couldn't the nightmares leave her alone, just once?

"Dani?" A sleepy mutter. "You 'kay?"

"Yeah," she gasped. "I'm okay, Charlie. It was just a really bad dream. No worries." She smiled weakly, more for her own benefit than anyone else's. It was a nightmare, nothing worse. It had to be. She couldn't be weak, not now. She had to be there when he woke up. She could already see it. He'd ask for water, and then he'd crack a bad joke that they'd all laugh at anyway, and the terrors of the night would disappear under the stark fluorescents. She shuddered. _It will be all right_, she breathed in an empty plea for mercy. _Everything will be all right, someday_.

She shifted again, trying to find a comfortable position. After a few minutes of this, she gave up and flopped onto the cot, shoving the pillow out of the way and sitting against the wall. She squinted up at the clock on the wall and groaned tiredly. Eleven twenty-something P.M. She'd only been sleeping for an hour and a half.

_Why can't I ever get a decent night's sleep?_, she wondered. Slowly, she drifted off to the sound of faint snoring, into the land of cinnamon cookies and blue skies and gumdrop wishes.

* * *

A/N: Direct follow-up to Cough Syrup.

No, this isn't foreshadowing at all. By the way, the sky is orange with purple polka-dots.


End file.
